The ability to detect and monitor occupancy in a space, such as a room or building, enables planning and controlling building systems for better space utilization, to minimize energy use, for security systems and more.
Hot desking or hoteling refers to an office organization system in which a single physical work space is used by multiple workers for efficient space utilization. Hot desking software systems usually allow companies to manage many space-related resources such as conference rooms, desks, offices, and project rooms.
Known hot desking systems use occupancy sensors to detect occupied work stations so that unoccupied work stations may be assigned to workers. Ideally, a hot desking system should guarantee each worker access to the right facility for the worker to be able to get the work done most efficiently. A facility may be a desk or work place in a specific resource area or in a specific team area.
Hot desking systems available to date require a worker to register or identify himself to a system which then assigns the identified worker to an unoccupied desk according to pre-set criteria. However, in today's dynamic work environments flexibility is required to guarantee that each worker gets access to the right facility. Thus, in addition to the irritation of having to register when coming to work, a worker is not guaranteed the most efficient facility.